MSU officials and state lawmakers are once again playing the blame game with state funding. Around and around the blame will go, and no matter where it stops, students will lose.
Last week, House Republicans introduced a bill that would take $18 million in state funding from MSU. Their rationale for doing so is that MSU raised tuition higher than the state ceiling, according to a report from the House Fiscal Agency.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because the same issue was raised this past July. Because of the imprecise wording of the law, MSU based the tuition increases around fall-to-summer rates, and the House Fiscal Agency bases its estimation of tuition increases on fall-to-fall rates.That and a rebate offered to students because of federal stimulus account for the discrepancy in tuition rates between the two parties. The matter was thought over in August when the state budget director found MSU’s tuition increases in accordance with state law.
Bringing this issue up again appears to be nothing more than rehashing of an issue that was dead and in the ground a month ago. No one, students especially, benefits from this rehash.
A lack of state funding promotes a vicious cycle, where universities raise tuition, the state cuts funding even further because of higher tuition, so universities raise tuition even more.
The ability of students to pay higher tuition rates appears to be lost in the shuffle.
There’s a possibility that this bill is just retaliation for the August ruling by the state budget director.
State lawmakers could be angry in thinking MSU exploited the system and want to prevent that from happening again.
If this legislation is symbolic, a shot across the bow warning MSU to calculate tuition increases like most of the public universities of this state, then House Republicans have made their point clear.
There’s no need for this to go any further.
If this isn’t a symbolic bill, then House Republicans should respect the decision already made by the state budget director and move on to something else, such as bringing jobs back to Michigan.
For House Republicans to continue fighting in the face of that decision smacks of undeserved retribution. Government can’t afford to cannibalize itself to get things done.
Perhaps, in the future, the university should put its calculation of tuition increases in line with the House Fiscal Agency.
Perhaps, in the future, the House of Representatives shouldn’t work so hard to strip public universities of every last nickel. For now, though, this shouldn’t turn into a game of “this public agency started it.”
Both public institutions still share the yoke of making students’ lives harder. In the end, the blame game has no winners.
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